But he was always drawn back to San Francisco, where he began and ended his ministerial career. He died Aug. 11 at a San Francisco hospital at the age of 92.

Rev. Shreve was born in Washington in 1912, the son of a minister. He pursued a career in social work after graduating from Stanford University in the 1930s.

He worked with denizens of Skid Row in San Francisco and with migrant farmworkers who had fled the Dust Bowl for California. Some of the cases he documented in the Salinas Valley were used by John Steinbeck in his research for "The Grapes of Wrath."

His social work, and a feeling that the needy required spiritual as well as physical assistance, led Rev. Shreve toward the ministry, said his nephew, John Ruffin of Santa Barbara.

Rev. Shreve hired an artist he had seen painting a mural in Washington's National Cathedral, Jan de Rosen, to paint a mural in Grace Cathedral's chapel. The work was so popular that de Rosen was commissioned to paint a number of other murals throughout the cathedral, some including likenesses of a young Rev. Shreve.

Rev. Shreve also served at St. Edmund's Church in San Marino (Los Angeles County); Holy Spirit in Nice, France; St. Paul's Within-the-Walls in Rome; St. John's in Elizabeth, N.J.; St. Andrew's in Murray Hill, N.J.; the American Cathedral in Paris; and the Nativity Cathedral in Bethlehem, Pa.

During his ministry in Rome, he became acquainted with many dignitaries from the worlds of royalty, politics, the arts, media and film. Time magazine founder Luce and his wife, Ambassador Claire Boothe Luce, and actors Fonda, Gloria Swanson, Olivia de Havilland and Fonda children Jane and Peter became members of his congregation while he was in Rome.

He returned to Grace Cathedral in 1996 as nave chaplain.

"He really felt Grace Cathedral was the formative spot for his ministry, " Ruffin said. "It was where he wanted to come back to in the last years of his life."

Rev. Shreve spent the last 10 years living with his sister, Ruth Grant, in her Tiburon home, where he had a commanding view of San Francisco from his bedroom.

"He loved the ambience of San Francisco -- the elegance of worldliness, " Ruffin said. "Right up to his death, he thought there was nothing better than going to the symphony or the opera. He loved the restaurants in San Francisco, and liked music and the arts. He was by no means a shut-in, even at 92."

He was also a great story-teller, said Ruffin.

"He was always the one you wanted to invite to dinner," he said. "Once you got him turned on, he really entertained the crowd. But he was also a very deeply spiritual man."

In addition to his sister, Ruth Grant, Rev. Shreve is survived by a son, David Shreve, of Long Island, N.Y., and a daughter, Helen Shreve, of Phoenix.

Memorial services will be held at 2 p.m. Aug. 30 at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, 3 Bay View, Belvedere, with a reception in the parish hall following. His ashes will be interred in Grace Cathedral.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to St. Stephen's or to Grace Cathedral.

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